November 2008 – Page 2

China’s Human Bees

Posted on November 9, 2008 by davesgonechina

There’s a new book about honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder, the unexplained disappearance of worker bees leading to the destruction of bee colonies throughout the world. A recent interview with the author of Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis had this nugget (h/t Andrew Sullivan):

And then there’s human pollination, as they’re doing in China. (Take millions of peasants, hand them bundles of chicken feathers, and let them climb through the fruit trees, touching every flower with a bit of pollen from a bucket.)

I hadn’t heard of this before, but it’s used for cherry orchards in Shandong (see above right) and is quite common in Xinjiang, where migrant labor for the cotton and pear agribusiness (run by the Bingtuan, or Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps) is used to cross pollinate crops after winter and to develop new hybrid strains. Just one of the many jobs that predominantly Uighur migrant workers will not be doing anytime soon given the bottom is falling out of the cotton market. When you can’t even get this job, you’re bound to be rather unhappy.

In Overcoming Our Pasts, a Bridge

Posted on November 5, 2008 by davesgonechina

On November 4, 2008, across the United States, people took to the streets in celebration when a winner was announced:

On July 13, 2001, across China, people took to the streets in celebration when a winner was announced:

In 1861, the United States began a bloody civil war, partly because of the election of a man from Illinois, primarily because of a national shame that has lingered since.

In 1839, China entered a war that would leave a sense of national shame in the years to follow.

In both cases, these symbolic victories can’t heal the deep wounds that they address; the Olympics did not end China’s insecurities for good, nor will Obama’s victory allow America to “transcend racism”. But they are powerful changes that shift an entire nations self-image forever in positive and deeply felt ways. Both announcements inspire a national sense of pride and purpose, both energize the young, both speak to enormous national and political issues that stretch across centuries and generations and yet feel vitally, deeply personal.

And it is in comparing these moments that we can better see one another. In our hopes, and our dreams.

My hometown, NYC – Harlem, this one is yours.

KFC, A to Z

Posted on November 4, 2008 by davesgonechina

ChinaSMACK has a post on shanzhai 山寨 brands. The first was this picture:

Which reminded me I took this photo a year ago. When I took it, I thought to myself “I’ll bet there’s a KFC knockoff for every letter of the alphabet”. Anybody got anymore? Baidu tells me there was a DFC (“Daintily Fried Chicken”) in Taiwan, and there’s some old BBS chatter about AFCs, BFCs and JFCs. If we can find enough it could be a Flickr group.

Your Mutant Palm Election Guide

Posted on November 2, 2008 by davesgonechina

Actually, more like a brief post of self congratulations. Encyclopedian Jess Nevins got to the issue of spiritual warfare a year before Sarah Palin made it a household name. I’ll see his spiritual warfare, and I’ll raise him a I had Pastor Muthee’s number a year ago, in a post on spiritual warfare in Xinjiang (and the rest of China). Talk2Action has the whole background and what Sarah Palin has in common with Harold Caballeros, a Guatamalan pastor who ran for president and condoned extrajudicial death squads for doing “holy work”. Xeni Jardin has quite a bit more on C. Peter Wagner and other parts of the movement.

Also, the recent Khalidi kerfuffle has brought out John McCain’s past leadership of the International Republican Institute (IRI). IRI President (and former McCain staffer) Lorne Cramer has been out speaking for the McCain campaign on Afghan issues and the New York Times reported on McCain’s IRI fundraising ties and how he moved the organization’s focus from Latin America to Eastern Europe (McCain’s friendship with Georgian strongman Mikhail Saakashvili started at an IRI meeting). I wrote about the IRI’s claims that it’s an “NGO” and its similarity to Chinese “NGOs” in June of last year.

I don’t seem to have any posts relating to Barack Obama or Joe Biden’s affiliations. Opposite End of China has an interesting one on Biden’s role in establishing CIA listening posts in Xinjiang.

Guess who I voted for.